Shutting the Gates was necessary to force the Elves to fight. The Dwarves understood that only through conflict and war one is truly tested and can better oneself, for peace and convalescence lead only to stagnation, apathy and ultimately enslavement and death... the Dwarves had no time for cowards fleeing in the shadows and refusing to fight for their people and land. If the Elves were routed, at least they died right up and fighting instead of cowering on their knees.
That is why the Dwarves never shut themselves from the world, unlike the Elves hiding in their forest realms, but instead took back their rightful homes by means of action - the Lonely Mountain from Smaug, Khazad-Dûm from the Orcs. That is also why the Dwarves fought in Nirnaeth Arnoediad, to aid those who had previously spitted on them, humiliated them and hunted them like animals.
But then, Elves were not made for fighting, they were made only to be beautiful and create beauty for which there was no more place after Arda was marred and had become a grim and violent place; when the few strength they had received had wained after hundreds of years of dwelling in the marred Middle-earth, they had no choice but to retreat in their artificial resorts and hope that somehow the other races would defeat Evil for them. But even then they would only keep on dwindling until they would be nothing but feeble, forgotten spirits.
This is a very important (perhaps the major) theme in Tolkien's works: the end of the old and the dawn of the new.
They were not made to be strong and hardy like Dwarves, or resourceful like Men. My conclusion is that they can both be blamed and not be blamed for their feelings towards Dwarves, and to a lesser degree, Men.
Give up the Halfring, she-elf...